We’re sitting together in his tent, my hands in his. The pieces of the Firebird sit on his camp table, glinting in the candlelight. I lean close, eager to hear about how, in this unlikely world, I came to be. “So you weren’t sure until now?”
“I was sure.” Dad is smiling, but it’s the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. Because he’s not looking at me—he’s staring into the past, at my mother, whom he will never see again. “We’d already—we weren’t together long. It was intensely dangerous for us both. Of course Sophia could not speak of her delicate condition, but I realized after a few months that she was to be a mother again. The tsar might as easily have been the father. I told myself that had to be the truth. Then one day, not long before you were born, she came in to see Vladimir at his lessons. While he was distracted, she . . . she took my hand.” Dad’s voice breaks. “She placed it on her belly, so I could feel you kick. That was the only acknowledgment she ever made. The only one I ever needed.”
“Oh, Dad.” I hug him, and he returns the embrace almost convulsively. I realize this is the only time in his life he’s ever been able to show his true feelings.
Then Dad stiffens and draws back. “Lieutenant Markov,” he says, expression going blank. “Are you going to report this?”
“Of course he isn’t!” I look to Paul for confirmation.
Paul bows his head toward me. “The grand duchess’s secrets are my secrets. I will speak no word of this to anyone else.”
Dad relaxes as he realizes we’re safe. I ask, “Katya—she’s the tsar’s, that much is obvious, but Peter?”
“Your mother and I were never together again. I couldn’t endanger her like that. It was a relief that you looked as much like her as you do.” Dad’s gaze softens as he looks at my face. “I wish she could have seen you grow up.”
“She did.” I lean forward, hoping to make him understand. “In my dimension, she’s alive and well. The two of you fell in love when you began doing scientific research together.”
“A scientist? Sophia was able to be a scientist?” There are no words for the joy of his smile. “Her mind was wasted on court etiquette and ballroom dances. She was utterly brilliant.”
“I know. Because she invented this.” I tap on the Firebird again.
He believes me now, I know, and yet Dad still wants to hear more about this world in which he and Mom got to be together. “And we’re married even now? She and I?”
That catches me short. First of all, Mom and Dad never actually got around to getting married. Apparently they had the license once, but then there was some sort of breakthrough in the lab and by the time they were done working out the ramifications, their license had expired. Mom keeps saying they’ll go back to the courthouse eventually, when they have the time, and follow through with an actual ceremony, but honestly I think they’ve mostly forgotten they aren’t already hitched. It never bugged me or Josie; we knew neither of them was going anywhere. I doubt the Henry Caine in this more traditional world would see it the same way, though.
But that’s almost irrelevant compared to the fact that my father—the Henry Caine who loved and raised me—is dead.
I can’t tell him that. It would be too horrible, to tell him he’d been murdered.
“Nothing would ever keep you and Mom apart,” I say. “You study physics side by side, every day. I—I even have an older sister, Josie. I mean, Josephine. She’s a scientist, like you.”
Dad turns his head sharply, and I realize he has to fight tears at the thought of this other daughter he’ll never have the chance to know.
“Please,” I whisper. “I know it’s selfish of me, but I need to get back home. Mom must be so scared. I have to get back to her.”
After a deep breath, Dad looks back at the Firebird. His voice is uneven as he says, “This device is a thousand times more powerful than I’d ever dreamed. You still trust me with it?”
“You helped invent it. That makes you my best chance to get back where I belong. If we’re not able to get Paul’s Firebird back, you’re my only chance.”
He lifts one of the metal pieces, studying it in the candlelight, and his gaze sharpens. “Then, my darling girl, let’s get you home.”
My camp cot would be cold and uncomfortable under any circumstances. Now, though, I compare it to the bed I stayed in last night, with Paul wrapped around me, strong and warm.
Tonight Paul is camped with the other soldiers. He is only a few hundred feet away, in a tent not so different from mine. We might as well be on separate planets. Tomorrow he will be sent to join his proper regiment, which is on the way to join our forces.
“We will rendezvous with Colonel Azarenko’s regiment on the way,” he told me before we parted. “Of course I will ask him about the Firebird as soon as I have a chance—but that doesn’t mean I’ll get it back.”
“What, do you think he might have pawned it or something?”